North Guardian Angel & Pretty Zion Rambles

pics by Harlan W.S. & CP
Oct 16-17, 2010

On Oct 16^th (Saturday), we navigated around the base of N Guardian Angel, in search of various obscure peaks with hoo doo shapes. On Saturday, CP and I went to N Guardian Angel (his 4^th time). It was a symbolic time for me; 40 years before, I had barely survived a whiteout and snowstorm above timberline, and some friends and relatives made predictions about whether I would live 40 years.

Day 1 track is in blue; day 2 in red. Officially, day 1 had 2500’ elevation gain and 11.2 miles; but it sure felt like more, since we were high-stepping over boulders.	Maples! It was dark when we started, but the red maples were a bright contrast to the yellow oaks.	The trip down had sections of slickrock…
But basalt boulders were the norm.	Slippery basalt boulders.	Finally, a sandy wash leads to the 1^st peaklet.
	On the side of the highest hoo doo, we get a view ENE to N Guardian Angel.	Ever cautious CP rigs a belay for DB (who grudgingly accepted, though she seemed fine on her own).
View SSE.	Near the top.	On top peaklet #1, with West Temple in distance.
	View N.
Now on to the second peaklet, with NGA in distance.		Zion crapstone.
	View N from 2^nd peaklet.	Evergreen seemingly growing out of the rock face.
	On 3^rd peaklet, view of NGA. We thought we could just mosey over to NGA on the connecting ridge; but there was a deep canyon between.	SGA (South Guardian Angel).
NGA from peak #3.	View S over hoo doos from #3.	Now we descend NE.
After this, we carefully negotiated a way down that involved one handline and a serendipitous tree.	We traversed N on the W side of NGA.
West Nortgate Peak is at L.		DB clambers up a to an overlook N of NGA.
The next morn, I head S toward NGA. I’ll climb up the ramp at left to the saddle, meet CP (who was off bagging another peak), then we’ll climb up the 4^th class ramp R of the saddle.	View of the saddle. It’s mostly 2^nd class from here.	I topped the 2^nd class ramp, and CP followed shortly. East Northgate is in distance.
It’s a lot steeper than it looks. We near the rappel tree.		Suddenly we are on the summit ridge!
	View SE, to peaklet #3 from previous day.	View S to SGA.
	Panorama N; West Northgate Peak is at L.	Arrogance!
From previous pages, we recognized many names; Ram 15 times, Tanya and Bo, Darija.
“Blaze” (created by rockfall) on way down.		We met another fellow near at the bottom of the crux, and CP volunteered to show him the way. CP is barely visible belaying from the tree, as the guy climbs. The fellow hadn’t climbed in over 25 years, and was a bit skittish. This view is looking up, from the bottom of the class 2 ramp.
I turn around at the overlook, for one last view S to NGA.	CP graciously took the fellow up a ways, through several belays, till a 5-minute rockfall convinced the poor guy that this might not be the day, and he rapped back down. For our climb, CP and I used no webbing or rope, though I had about 115’ webbing in my pack. If I had been alone, I would probably have used a handline for the last class 4 descent. The exposure and friable nature of the rock account for the class 4 rating; in Red Rock NV, similar slopes would be called class 3 (but would be much more reliable).